Category: my ramblings

This. Weekend. Sucked.

Well, to be fair, only Saturday sucked. Well, it sucked, and then for a brief, shining moment, it was good again, but then it sucked again. Let me explain.

On Friday evening I was installing my company’s VPN software on my home PC, so I can attach to the corporate network and use such wonderful software as Microsoft Outlook. Well, actually it was so I can work from home a day a week. So anyways, I run the installer with nary a hitch, it says to reboot, so I do. After said reboot, I try to run the software, at which point instead of the login screen, I get a message from Windows Bloody XP that says that there is a known compatability problem with this application, and I can’t run it. Please go away.

Oh joy. Once again, the vagrancies of changing APIs rear their ugly head. Pissed off, I go to uninstall the software, but right in the middle of uninstalling, my computer decides to reboot. Oops. Now thoroughly pissed off, I glance at my watch, realize the time, and just hit the power button with the intent of fixing the infernal device in the morning.

Morning rolls around. I hit the power switch on my PC, and nothing. Well, almost nothing: there’s power, the fans are spinning, but the board won’t self-test, and there’s no video signal. Normally I would panic, but this has happened with this machine before: it don’t like to wake up. So I try, and try, and try, and try to get it to boot. Same crap. Despair starts taking over. Even if I unplug everything except for the motherboard, video card, and a stick of RAM, the system still won’t POST. Bad. So I call Michael, Sandy’s brother, who built the machine for me in his computer store. Tell him what’s wrong, he suggests the power supply is toast. Out I go to grab another (higher rated) power supply to try. Still no go. I call him back, tell him it’s not the PS, and his immediate reply is “OK, I’ll come over”. He lives 2.5 hours away by car. Uhm, okay, he’s a really nice guy, so I guess it’s not that strange, he’s been here before. It’ll be just like another visit, but with a purpose.

A few hours later, he arrives with four friends. Hey, the guy hates driving alone apparently. Sandy is back home by this point. Him and his friends have brought me a new motherboard and CPU, and go to replacing my (most likely fried) one. To summarize:

Good things that happened:

• My computer got fixed, and I even got a faster CPU (but I did have to re-install Windows)
• We sold our old PS1 system
• We were having a good time

??? things that happened:

• Uhm, Mike told us that his girlfriend is most likely pregnant

Bad things that happened:

• One of Mike’s friends (accidentally) shattered a flourescent tube in our living room, resulting in an hour and a half of clean-up.
• We didn’t go see Bowling for Columbine like we had hoped.

Yeah, that’s about all. Yeah. I got to spend the rest of the weekend rebuilding my computer (with Win2000, thank you very much, WinXP can bite me) and generally not doing the things we had planned. Argh.

Damn, I’m too fast on the enter key. And I don’t have a real content management system, but instead a web form, a few lines of PHP, and some bash scripts. But using FTP and its insecure logins is just evil. Truly.

Anyways.

Why am I still at the office? I’m almost the only one left in my group, or on my floor actually. I’m waiting for my train, which doesn’t leave until 5:40pm. I suppose I could have jumped on the Greyhound and gotten home sooner, but the Greyhound sucks. I have developed an extreme dislike to it since I took it twice a day for two months over the summer. (Damn, the summer was so long ago!) Sometimes you get good driver, usually you get awful drivers. Occasionally the buses are nice, but usually the buses suck ass. All the buses are cramped (for me at least – I’m 6 foot 2, aka 188cm (tall!)). Some of them smell bad. Not all of them have air conditioning or heating. And let’s not forget that you still have to contend with bad traffic. It’s just shitty, period. The only good thing about it is that it runs about a billion times a day between Toronto and Guelph.

Now that I can afford it, I commute on the VIA train. It’s very nice, roomy, comfortable seats all the time, doesn’t feel like a sardine can, is always air conditioned or heated, and is very very seldom late. It only runs three or four times a day, though – and that’s why I’m still here, because train 87 doesn’t leave for another hour and a half.

In the meantime, I’ve been updating WikiWikiNewt. And generally just surfing the web. I’m now seriously considering just going to Union station and sitting on a bench for an hour playing Tengen Tetris via PocketNES on my GBA until the train comes in. Adios. Have a Happy New Thing.

Okay. It’s time for the post-Xmas report. Brace yourselves.

First off, I’ve decided to stop saying Christmas and start saying Xmas (as in EKS-mas). For one, I’m not Christian, so Christ doesn’t enter into it for me, so I should stop pretending. Two, there is lots of evidence that Christmas was really a pagan holiday co-opted by the Christians in order to make it more acceptable to people. So I shouldn’t have to accept Christ in order to have celebrations around this time of year. Instead, it’s just a nice time to spend with friends and family, to reflect on the year past, marking the passage of time (I’m not a big New Years party person) and making people (and me) happy by doing nice things for them, or buying nice things for them. (And yes, Wes, I do feel happy.) Sure, X really just stands for Christ, but I don’t care. Pthhhhhh.

Next up: I always end up buying more things for myself than people get for me. But on the other hand, other people always buy me things that I would never go out and get for myself, stuff I need. Like sweaters. I got three sweaters for Xmas this year, which was great because my winter wardrobe was in dire need of some variety. But I never go clothes shopping, ever. So that was great.

The buying-stuff-for-myself-department: well, probably went overboard here. Way overboard. But I did get some things that I had been pining over for a while: a new DVD player that supports SVCDs (and I gave our old one to my parents, thankyew). Ever since getting my GBA I’ve been looking at getting a backup system for it. This is composed of a GBA cartridge that has flash RAM on it, and a PC interface to write to the cartridge. I bit the bullet and got my Flash Advance Xtreme 128M on the 27th. My primary use for this is basicially going to be playing ROMs from the Internet, yes – I don’t intend to buy another GBA game again. But you can also do other awesome things with it: right now, for example, not only do I have three GBA games loaded onto it but also an NES emulator to play my old 8-bit classics! This kicks ass: I played Tengen Tetris on the train this morning, right on my GBA. And I’m just a menu away from Super Mario Bros. 3, or flick the power off and on and I can play F-Zero Advance, or Super Monkey Ball Jr.

Oh, and I picked up a Canon PowerShot S230 the other day as well. Heh heh heh. I won’t be buying ANYTHING for a few months, but that’s just fine. We went to Future Shop on Saturday and they just happened to have gotten some more stock. They didn’t have the S200 doorcrasher ($449) anymore, but for not too much more, the S230 has a 3.2 megapixel CCD, better digital zoom (hey, it’s useful occasionally!), and a new image processor for better full-auto shots. After standing there for a while Sandy convinced me to stop waiting to get it and just get it. So I got it, I’ve been using it, and I’m not disappointed in the least. It’s a hella nice camera. And I even got lucky and got a 128MB Lexar CF card for the $49 special price! Schweet.

This article has left me totally shellshocked. Completely. Utterly. Fully. I don’t know what else to say.

I think I’m only going to travel by rail from now on. And certainly not domestically in the States – I don’t need some idiot security person having me remove my clothes in public, thanks.

I’m feeling a tiny bit better. My head is still pounding though.

I totally forgot to write about a bunch of stuff. On Wednesday we saw LOTR:TTT on the IMAX screen at Famous Players Paramount in Toronto. It kicked ass. I think I can say without spoiling it too much that I was happy to see some of the humour introduced in the extended version of the Fellowship continue on in TTT.

I got Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for my GBA. It’s my first, and probably going to be my only GBA game. Link to the Past has gotta be my #2 classic game – surprassed only by Chrono Trigger. I’ve almost finished it, of course – I can remember just about everything about it, except for how to go through the friggin’ Ice Palace (grr!) and where the Magic Cape and Quake medallions are. It’s such a good game though, and quite a faithful port. I was thoroughly disappointed to see that the additional game, The Four Swords, required at least two people for play. Once you finish The Four Swords, you can play an extra dungeon that has been added to Link to the Past! Fie on you Nintendo. I guess I’ll just have to use my Flash2Advance backup system, which shipped today! Damn that makes me happy. Damn damn damn. Straight outta Hong Kong, no less. Oh yeah.

We’re going to see my parents at the cottage for a pre-Xmas dinner tomorrow. We’ll be seeing Sandy’s kin over Xmas itself. Sandy and I exchanged our gifts yesterday ’cause we’re still 8 year old kids like that 🙂 I think we were both happy and suprised at what we got each other. I’ve gotten a lot better at this “shopping for your significant other” thing since last year, that’s for sure… I was flippin’ out last year. No more of that tomfoolery.

Wow, I’m so out of it that I posted a blank entry. Hope that doesn’t mess things up.

For some reason, I feel like total ass today. I have a splitting headache that won’t go away. I my face looks like a total burn-out. My brain is having a hard time functioning – it feels like it’s stuck in some mud. I feel a little bit sick – do I need to eat food, or not eat food? I think I need to eat – my tummy is grumbly. Bagel time.

I’ve been collecting great Newton news sites. Here’s my list:

• Newton Does It. This site is usually updated faster than my brain 🙂 Andre does such a damn fine job with updates, I’m starting to think he might be the most advanced web robot of all time 🙂
• Newton Enlightenment. As above, but with images and much richer content, and a nice events list too.
• Newton Dose. For your daily Newton fix, when you don’t feel like reading 100 messages 🙂

We’re going to see LOTR:TTT on Wednesday, at 6, at the Paramount in Toronto. Schweeeet.

An awesome interview with Shigeru Miyamoto that also manages to be an article about the future of games. (Miyamoto is the brain at Nintendo behind Mario, Zelda, and just about every videogame innovation you’ve ever heard of). In short: some people think that Miyamoto is holding back the industry because his games are too child-like. I love what Miyamoto says: “I am not convinced that being more realistic makes better games.” That’s my philosophy as well.

This is one of the smartest things I’ve seen in a long time. A counter-script to follow when a telemarketer calls you, much like the one they use on you. Brilliant. I’m putting this up next to the phone.